


Sherlock Receives Rather Violent Proof That Magic Does, In Fact, Exist

by Cardigan_Quincy



Category: Sherlock (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bad Ending, Death, Gen, I wrote this for a feels war it doesn't end well okay, Tragedy, literally nothing happy about this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 02:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13894305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cardigan_Quincy/pseuds/Cardigan_Quincy
Summary: Loki casts a spell on Sherlock, leaving him struggling to keep his mind in one piece. Sherlock does the only thing he can think of -- call John.Basically Quincy and I got in a feels war ages ago and this is what I wrote. You can blame her.





	Sherlock Receives Rather Violent Proof That Magic Does, In Fact, Exist

If he could just reach his phone.

It wasn’t a bullet. He’d been shot before, and he knew the terrible black-hole nothingness that was felt after. This was different. He was awake — too awake, his mind travelling too fast to keep up with, even for him. And there hadn’t been a gun. Obvious, that was obvious, no need to go any farther. It hadn’t been a gun.

He’d stopped trying to get the phone. He’d gotten distracted. Stupid, stupid—

With a grunt, he heaved himself a few inches forward. The pain was electric, brilliant. He couldn’t stop. There was no blessed darkness to comfort him now. Whatever had hit him was growing, clawing its way through every part of him, every vein and nerve and muscle and organ with almost loving diligence.

Phone. Right. Another excruciating inch forward. Would John even know what to do? Did he know how to fix magic?

He hated that word, that black, bloody, impossible word that had somehow managed to stop him. Nothing else in the world would have come as a surprise. Nothing else would have been able to bring him this low. But here he was, nose to the rug, trying to drag himself across his flat and through the razor sharp flurry of unwanted thoughts to get to his cell.

“Careful, you’re losing it.”

Sherlock had forgotten about the green and gold prince in his chair. He tried to speak, tried to spit back a profanity, but he couldn’t remember how to work his mouth.

“I’m serious. You lose yourself in your thoughts and you’ll never escape.”

Sherlock tried to look over his shoulder at the man, but the voice stopped him. “No, not at me. The phone. Far side of the kitchen on the counter.”

Sherlock didn’t move. He might not have his voice, but he still had his spite.

The voice made a frustrated noise. “The spell will consume you if you don’t have something to focus on. And like it or not, we both need you to stay focussed right now. I don’t want you dead any more than you do.”

“You… certainly haven’t… made this simple,” Sherlock croaked. He was pretty sure he was drooling, but he didn’t dare wipe his mouth for fear of tipping over.

“Your struggle is powering a connection with a version of you in another universe. I need your struggle to continue until the connection is self sustaining.”

“And then what?”

“Then I leave. You’ll never hear from me again.”

He didn’t believe him. Not in the slightest. But staying still wasn’t helping the pain, and maybe, just maybe John could help. He heaved himself forward.

#*#*#

Over the course of a small eternity, in which the sun crawled across the sky even slower than he did across the floor, Sherlock managed to scrape himself off the rug and onto the colder, harder floor in the kitchen. Or mostly. His feet were still on the carpet.

He could nearly touch the base of the cupboards with his arm outstretched. The alien prince hadn’t said much, only reminding him to stay on track whenever he teetered towards losing himself in his thoughts. Sherlock had started playing music in his mind palace to use up some of his excess brainpower, making himself repeat and repeat the most complicated passages on his imaginary violin, fast as could.

Another painful lurch. A few inches closer. He could touch now.

Slowly, he pulled himself up and over, curled his left hand around the edge of the counter and his right around his cold phone.

He fell, curling in, impacting the floor and dropping his phone.

His thoughts seemed to shatter in a thousand directions, to the sound of Bartok Solo Violin Sonata still playing in the background.

He was on the roof with Moriarty, only this hadn’t happened — John hadn’t jumped. But that was his body on the pavement.

He was meeting John at the restaurant, with Mary, when he’d revealed that he wasn’t dead — only this time he really was a waiter and John didn’t know who he was. He did a quick deduction in a mirror, and discovered to his horror that he’d had three girlfriends in the past four years, owned three cats, and had a bit of an obsession with astronomy that he was trying to pass off as something high class.

In another shard he got John shot by a goon. In another he was attacking John himself, and he was just lucid enough to wonder why his thoughts had turned from distracting to his own personal nightmare. Was it the spell progressing, or had the prince turned up the heat?

The phone. It was his only hope.

His arm hit the cupboard, and he discovered that his eyes were closed, because now he opened them. The room seemed dull after the vivid pictures in his mind.

He’d missed the phone. The prince was leaning forward, arms on his knees. His smile was haunting.

Sherlock grabbed the phone. Thank heavens for redial. Punching every number in seemed almost herculean.

He held the phone to he ear, shaking.

The phone rang. Rang. Rang again.

No one answered.

Fumbling, shaking, desperate, Sherlock hit the button again and put it back to his ear.

Please, John…

Nothing.

He was yelling. The electric blue pain was flooding him. Didn’t John know? Didn’t he know it was important, that he needed him? Now?

He dialed again.

#*#*#

_Two hours later_

John had spent most of the movie staring at Mary, watching the reactions play across her face. It was way more interesting than anything they could put on the screen, not to mention more beautiful. After that, they’d gone out to dinner at a new restaurant. Seemed that dating didn’t lose any shine after marriage.

Sherlock had called — hadn’t stopped calling, really, but when was that unusual. If it was important, he’d show up in a cab and whisk him and Mary off to anywhere from a museum to a sewer. So he turned down his ringer and ignored it.

Once he got home, he figured he’d better check on him.

There were twenty-four missed calls. The first few came within a few seconds of each other, probably only long enough to finish ringing. Then they started spreading out. The last was nearly ten minutes after the one before.

That was an odd pattern for Sherlock. Usually he fired off three or four and then stopped cold. John called him back.

There was no answer.

Normally he wouldn’t be worried, but twenty-four calls…

He sighed, told Mary where he was going, and went out to find a cab.

#*#*#

Sherlock was alone on the kitchen floor.

John skidded to his knees, checked his pulse — barely there, declining fast — phoned 999 for an ambulance and hung up before they told him to, keeping his fingers on Sherlock’s wrist the whole time.

For a split second he considered phoning Mycroft, but dismissed the idea. No point doing that when he could be helping.

He felt Sherlock’s wrist go still under his fingers.

#*#*#

By the time the ambulance got there it didn’t matter anymore. John had curled up on the couch, too cowardly to call Mary and tell her.

He clutched Sherlock’s phone, ignoring the paramedics rushing around and moving things — Sherlock would have been so mad at them — eyes staring right through the unsent text on Sherlock’s screen.

_J_

That was all.

**Author's Note:**

> There was never an official winner declared for the feels war, but I'm pretty sure I won... partially because I wasn't in the Voltron fandom when we had it, and that's what she wrote for. Who knows, maybe she'll post it someday.


End file.
